I'm excited! My manager is hot to trot to get me and my counterpart trained and certified for GCIH. I am excited. He told me our department has a seat for SANS. From what dates and locations he was telling me I believe it is for one of the larger SANS conferences and not the community SANS.

I also told him that I would be open for doing the self-study method, either OnDemand or the Online classes with Ed in May. I am sure that got his attention because that means he does not have to pay for my flight, nor does he have to pay my salary while I train. I can do it completely off hours and on my own. Which also means I may have more opportunities for additional training.

I know it may sound stupid for me not to take advantage of my company paying for everything, but I have a family at home that I want to be available for. My wife is ok with being home for 6 days with the baby, because she understands how important this is to me and my career.. then ultimately to our finacial well being.

So, once I am done with the CEH, I plan on cracking open Counter Hack Reloaded and going for training. W00t!

Full disclosure: I both teach 504 for SANS and serve as an OnDemand Virtual Mentor...

One very nice thing about both OnDemand (online anytime you recorded Ed audio and the associated slide and notes on the screen) or @Home (online with Ed/John actually talking to you) is that you get to spend a lot of time with the material. SANS definitely employs the firehouse method of instruction, and 6 days of drinking from that hose can be pretty overwhelming.

Again note the full disclosure, but I highly recommend anyone taking a SANS class via another avenue look at bundling the OnDemand. The additional cost is $399. Given that your boss is not going to have to pay for travel costs, and the added cost of you being away from work for a week, the additional $399 for bundling OnDemand will likely not sound too bad. So, my personal recommendation would be going for the @Home and then bundling the OnDemand.

An additional note/suggestion... If you do end up having SANS OnDemand access, make use of the virtual mentors. Basically any content related questions you have regarding a slide or assessment question can be submitted to the ODVMs. The ODVMs that support content questions all teach SANS classes themselves... You're not getting just some peon that is gonna google and fumble their way to something approaching an answer.... A lot of OnDemand students don't seem to realize that the backend content support is staffed with instructors...

Congrats! The course is a blast! I took it in December 2007 with Ed teaching. Very informative. Take advantage of all the 'extras' that go on at the night sessions if you are going to one of the big sessions. Enjoy!

Thanks for all the input! I will post my experience when my time comes.

My only concern is that I may get dropped into the Orlando session in two weeks, right before I sit for the CEH exam.. Other than that, I have my wife's full support. Although, she wants me to take the training over the summer when she is able to be home with the baby (heck, she ain't a baby no more, she is going to turn 1 next week). Unfortunately, my manager wants to get my counterpart and I training quickly so we can bring our Security Operation Center up to speed.

My hopes are being crushed. It turns out the two SANS seats were going to come on loan from another department with money to burn in the training budget. My manager said it is not looking good that we will get them.

I still asked for the Counter Hack Reloaded by Ed Skoudis so I can begin my journey of self study. I hope that our budget will finally be approved by the time I am ready. I also have course material from 2004 when a co-worker went through the class that I can review for the basics. Well, you win some and you lose some, eh?

Sorry to hear that you might not get the expected training. One thing I was able to do to get SANS training when budgets were tight was to offer to serve as a facilitator. Getting a course, certification attempt, and OnDemand access for $700 can certainly be a cost effective means to get SANS training. On top of showing initiative and sense of frugality, you get to network with other facilitators and to some extent instructors.

There are other write-ups on Ethical Hacker about serving as a SANS Facilitator that can provide additional information on the experience.

Hope this helps. You might have already been aware of the facilitator option, but I've found there are quite a few folks that don't realize this is an option.

I signed up for the work study here in Orlando, but got picked for the basic security course, GSEC I think. Do I keep on submitting my application for facilitator until I get in the SEC504 class? When I signed up I had to rate all the courses 1-30... I guess they filled my first choices with work study all ready.

My management is slowing down on their support, I still can't get them to come off the $30 for the book. I'm trying to track down an inexpensive copy myself. I tried doing the Brady Bunch challange here to win a signed copy, but I got lost before I even started. Well, here's hoping I can get the cheap book. Then maybe with some of the SANS reading room material I can actually pass this thing... either that or they finally approve our training budget (or I just get a job with another department that has a budget).

Would it be unethical if I sold my company bought CISSP books to fund my next cert? At least ONE of them was given to me for my CISSP boot camp with no expectation of giving it back. The others were given to me by my quasi-mentor who all ready passed CISSP. Nobody else in my department wants them.